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Why the hack is there no build in follow focus in Canon EF Mount

S

Steffen Baermann

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Hi all,

I am just sitting here and thinking why does Red not offer us the opportunity to do follow focus for Canon lenses or other via the camera ? We are all spending tons of money to mount extra motors / follow focus outside the camera, whilst the lens has already build in motors and the camera has the electronics to even tell me, where the focus of the lens is.

Would it be too much of an ask to just combine this 2 things ? We could use the side handle on camera even with some Markers (buttons to program) to manage the focus (I know it works already today somehow).

Or we get a wireless device like a red mote V2. That we can use for remote focus pull.

This would :

safe gear
quicker to set up on location
give red the opportunity to have a product advantage to other newbie 4K+ Cameras ?

What's your thoughts on that ?

Steffen
 
Heh. In short there are options and there are more on the way.

There was in the works at one time a Redmote Pro. Although the status of this device or any other device that would perform this action is currently unknown.

Along the way Optitek developed the Optitron:
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?87950-The-Future-of-Follow-Focus-Now-Optitron-by-OptiTek

Also, Viewfactor has been working on the Origo wireless controller for some time. It's been demonstrated and there is said to be a handwheel in the works:
http://www.viewfactor.net/blog/?p=294
 
mmh I think, it sould be a RED-Device. No extra hardware or mount needed. It is all in the software, plus a wheel for the redmote. I can imagine 3rd party is developing this, but why can not red ?
 
Steffen Baermann said:
but why can not red ?
Click to expand...

They might be. We just don't know just yet.

Especially if there's competition out there it's not always wise to place all your cards on the table before a product is close to being released.

We'll see.
 
Phil Holland said:
They might be. We just don't know just yet.

Especially if there's competition out there it's not always wise to place all your cards on the table before a product is close to being released.

We'll see.
Click to expand...
As much as this is flattering I hardly think that there is any competition to RED for REDMOTE. It's an encrypted proprietary system closed off to outsiders...
 
Competetion

Competetion

Well, I was talking about competitive advantage vs. other Camera's everybody seems to be going 4K. So another reason to by RED.
 
Stupid as it sounds but It's not so so easy to make. There is quite a few wireless options out there but the once that actually works cost quite a bit and the people behind them put several years into developing them. As I see it it's far better if red focus on getting the best possible sensors out there and make bank from that, as that is the primary thing of a camera, everything else comes second and a lot of camera manufacturer have fallen over when they try to make their product range wider. So for that reason I think it's good that Red bought element technica and let them handle stuff like FFs and other things.

But on the other hand I agree, how hard can it be... put a bigger wheel on the redmote and alter the software so that the wheel is linked to the canon lens.... but then again Jacek can probably explain how difficult it is to run such motors with repeatable precision, resolution and no lag or gitter over a wireless connection... it involves quite difficult stuff. And if red made such thing and it would show up to work like the early redmotes... then I think it's better that they focus on their main taks instead, which to me is developiing and building sensors that are top class.
 
@ björn. If I remember it right the lens tells SCARLET exactly what is the focal lenght on the image. So - somehow that information is sent to camera. And I guess what the lense is transmitting must be quite exact, otherwise the DSLR can not foucs it either right ? Would be great to hear from RED. Also they should have natural interest on this. If we think how much a good remote follow focus is in cost, this can easily be up to 5000 USD or more. If we save the money on the equipment we urgently need, we can spend it on Red otherwise :-))
 
Personally I'd like it if they improved the auto focus a bit. For initial focus on run-n-gun solo shooting situations.
The simple first step : open the aperture before focus to make it easier for the focus, then close back down.
 
Latest Beta build allows you to map focus control to the wheel on either the REDmote or the Sidehandle....:wink5:
 
Jacek Zakowicz said:
Other cameras already have that option.
Click to expand...

Jacek,
How far are you from having a reliable wireless EF FF?I might be completely wrong but as I understand you are able to run the focus of the lens with cable to the hand wheel, the wireless stuff is still in the works, right?
I think kind of the same as Steffen writes here that the focus info is given to the camera. So would it be a complete mission impossible to make the camera dial in the EF lens to a certain given focus by feeding it with a Wifi signal?


Also long ago I had a quite extensive idea that I gave to the magiclandtern guys. But they turned it down and did not bother to implement it in their 5D hack.... So my idea was as follows for implementing wired iphone FF for the 5D.

I will try to explain as clearly as I can.

As it was the magic landtern guys had hacked the 5D so you coudl feed it with external TC by feeding TC in trough the microphone jack.
They also managed to get into the focus control so that they could shoot bracketing and such.

Now my idea was as follows:

Make a iphone app that generated TC (as sound) that is feed out from the Iphone's hedphone jack.
Then program the 5D so that it was driving the focus so that for example TC:01:00:00:00 was infinite and TC 00:00:00:00 was the near focus limit of the lens.

The Iphone app would simply just have a slider that changed a TC string between 00:00:00:00 and 01:00:00:00 and the camera would move the focus accordingly. Then on the app you could set your "focus marks" and name them 10m,5m 20cm etc.

So with my unproved logic above you would be able to drive the 5D focus as an wired FF just using a sound cable with hedphone pins in both ends and an iphone....

I thought I was a genius that thought that out. But I guess I have to go do it to prove it :)

Now could you not make something simular to the optitek mount.... use the sound output of an iphone and a simple cable. or does it really need to be a dedicated device to pull focus? As to me it would be more east to make an iphone app and then add a wheel with a rubber finger touching the screen than inventing the digital / smart hand unit from scratch. There is so much good stuff in an iphone that to me can not really be matched with custom made small production line units. To me thats pretty clear when looking at the Red mote I honestly think it would be better if they developed an app and charged the same as they do for the remote. As it's really hard to email screen dumps and such with the redmote, you know what I mean... no go out and make that fantastic TC FF system :)
 
Alan Piper said:
Latest Beta build allows you to map focus control to the wheel on either the REDmote or the Sidehandle....:wink5:
Click to expand...

Sneaky. So very sneaky.
 
Alan Piper said:
Latest Beta build allows you to map focus control to the wheel on either the REDmote or the Sidehandle....:wink5:
Click to expand...

Nice!

So now we need somebody that makes big wheels that we can glue to the redmote.

I want a holder for my CFF-1 hand wheel on there :)

do you mean the beta that is out now?
 
That REDMOTE Pro really spoiled us all, right? ;) I would love to have it.
What kills the Optitron for me is the Motion Mount, having to choose between this and a mount for a electronic FF would make it really hard for me to go with the EFF. Sorry Jacek.

BTW, why does a EFF always imitate a mechanical FF? I mean the controller-wheels. A EFF-system would allow different input-methods, there are many things to explore here. ;)

I hope for some AF-improvements too, but there are limits, it's just a contrast-based system and for that it's not that bad. Compare it to DSLRs in liveview and you'll see what i mean. Well, the new Canon 70D and Sony's SLTs are exceptions, because they work differently.

The AF of a 70D in a RED would be something. Hehe.
 
Red beta build pwnage LOL...its like by the time we ask for a request, its already done...
 
Can someone test this and report how good it works and what the limitations are? I don't have a RedMote or Side Handle to test. If you can map points on the wheel it would be really amazing... lot's of possibilities.
 
Contrast ( through the sensor ) based auto focus has come a long way. We can thank point and shoot cameras for this.
I've seen some recent white papers on the newest methods for converging on good focus with minimal hunting. But since Red is targeted towards the cinema market, I'm sure that the improvements in AF are back burner-ed.

Maik Müller Menendez said:
I hope for some AF-improvements too, but there are limits, it's just a contrast-based system and for that it's not that bad. Compare it to DSLRs in liveview and you'll see what i mean. Well, the new Canon 70D and Sony's SLTs are exceptions, because they work differently.

The AF of a 70D in a RED would be something. Hehe.
Click to expand...
 
Robino_J said:
Can someone test this and report how good it works and what the limitations are? I don't have a RedMote or Side Handle to test. If you can map points on the wheel it would be really amazing... lot's of possibilities.
Click to expand...


Don't both of those wheels (RedMote and SideHandle) have Clicks? I would imagine this method wouldn't be the smoothest in the world.

However, having the software there and in place would mean that as soon as a RedMote Pro is out there (I imagine with a declicked wheel) it'll focus smooth as butter and have been tested internally for a very long while.
 
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